


The Hungry Ones

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers
Genre: Unclear POV, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27372886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: Or: How One Maledictine Became Human On The Further Side Of Life
Kudos: 1





	The Hungry Ones

It _hungered_.

They had been made to hunger, to consume all that was. Their purpose had been to consume the excess, to gorge on the leavings and make way for that which was new. So they had been made, and so they had done since the first drops of Time crossed into the plane of Being.

But it had not been enough.

And so they had consumed more. At first that which was near to leavings, then more and more as their hunger could not be filled. They were made empty, and could not change themselves to be full even as they ate to surfeit.

And still, it had not been enough.

So they ate on, consuming everything like a great plague of locusts. Land and sea alike fell to their insatiable hunger, then the cores, and the planets themselves. They were inevitable, inexorable, and the end of all things. Time itself fell into their hungry jaws, and found no escape. The purest of fire energy could not burn them, the brightest of light energy served only to spur them on in pursuit of it.

Thus were they banished.

The struggle had been titanic, the energies involved beyond the scope of mortal understanding. At the end of it all, they, their planet, and all that comprised them was banished to the far side of reality, to the Place Which Was Not. There, they could find nothing to consume. There, their purpose was thwarted. There, their hunger grew without relief. They could not even consume each other; the only thing to try and fit into their gaping maws was…Nothing.

And so they fought. A barrier had been put in place, to keep them from their truest purpose; they attacked it in frenzy. Claws, tentacles, fingers, pincers, limbs which had no place in mortal understanding - they scratched and tore at the barrier. They threw their own hunger at the barrier, the black ichor trying to consume the barrier from within. They threw _themselves_ against the barrier, the whole of their selves attacking the barrier in dimensions so far beyond the mortal three that it would drive men mad to contemplate them.

The barrier held against their assault, battered but unbowed.

All they were, all they had, had been created equal - but it had not remained that way. There were a few, craftier than the rest, that had made themselves more. At the forefront of violating the boundaries of the intent which had shaped them, they had consumed more than their brethren. Bigger. Faster. Newer. Stronger. They had started from the same stock, but to call them the same now would be to say a pebble is the same as a boulder.

These mighty few threw themselves at the barrier, too. They joined in the screaming, and the clawing, and the attacks made from above and below and from directions that do not have words to describe them. And where their brethren had dashed themselves upon the barrier and slid away, they _bent_ it. Mangled it. Reshaped it, just a little - just enough to gaze upon that which was denied them.

That Which Was had changed, in their absence - or perhaps _because_ of their absence. Reality itself had changed, in the light of the stream of Time, and there were new things now. Things which had not existed before, or perhaps had not existed since; the bending of the barrier warped time as a lens bends light, and sometimes That Which Was appeared to be a very strange place indeed.

The sight of Reality, however slight, was enough to spur the titans on. Names were meaningless, time was meaningless - all that mattered was the _hunger_. That endless, ceaseless, remorseless hunger that cried out for what was on the other side of the barrier. Even the titans were not immune, and under the siren song of satiation - no matter that they all knew it to be a lie as hollow as they were - they did more than they had ever thought possible to the barrier.

Bending, folding, spindling, mutilating - _scraping_ along vertices that only existed where the eighth dimension met the sixth, _prying_ at the corners between the tenth and eleventh dimensions, _chipping_ at the seam of the seventh dimension - they set themselves to their task without rest or respite.

And, for an _instant_ , in a _single_ , _solitary spot_ \- the barrier _tore_.

It lasted for less than the the space between one turn of an atom and the next, but that was more than enough for the wily titan that had made it. That titan was free at last, in a Reality that looked very different from the one it remembered. It did not care; it _hungered_ , and sustenance was at hand.

It ate, and ate, and _ate_. It swallowed Bloom energy with greenery, it sipped at Water magic in the cool of the oceans, it consumed Fire energy by the handful from the volcano where it bubbled. It reveled in the feeling of Blight as it slid down its throat, and tasted carefully of Void where it lingered in the shade. It could never be satisfied, yet even the partial reduction was better than the all-consuming hunger.

It could not be stopped. It would not be stopped, its own malice clearing the way ahead of it like a cross between a herald and a spider’s digestive enzymes. The ichor made things easier to consume, softening food and making it easier to swallow whole. Reality could not withstand it, no matter what form Reality took, but it was a great believer in efficiency when it came to filling its empty stomach, and the ichor was efficient.

And then **THEY** came.

And **THEY** said, There is a deal to be made.

It ate a hill, and did not reply.

And **THEY** said, You will never be full. Your hunger will know no rest.

It ate a glacier, and did not reply.

And **THEY** said, There is a way to sate your hunger.

Finally, it looked at **THEM**. _**YoU** jUsT sAiD mY hUnGeR wOuLd NeVeR fInD rEsPiTe_, it replied.

And **THEY** said, There is a deal to be made.

It meditatively ate half a cliff, electing to chew thoroughly before replying. _I’m LiStEnInG._

And **THEY** said, You would be made whole. The mouth of hunger would be filled to the brim with that which conquers emptiness.

It did not reply for a long time. It ate the rest of the cliff, drank the waters of the loch, and consumed an archipelago before it finally replied. _**YoU** bAnIsHeD uS._

And **THEY** said, You are here, are you not?

It replied, _By DiNt Of MuCh EfFoRt, YeS._

And **THEY** said, Do you want to go back?

It spoke over **THEIR** last words, in its haste. _nO_.

And **THEY** said, Do we have a deal?

And It replied, _YeS._

Reality _changed_.

It was not large anymore. In fact, it seemed to very small. And warm, though there were cold spots. It was still hungry, though, which struck it as immensely unfair. This had not been the bargain made!

It began to wail.

Light shone down upon its eyes, and it blinked, wail trailing off at the new sensation. A shadowy form stood outlined in the light, and try though it might, it could not focus to bring the shadow into clear view. This was new, and unwelcome, and it began to wail again.

The silhouette reached down and lifted it out of the warm. It was cold now, save for where the silhouette held it against their body. The silhouette made noises - they were good noises. The motions they were making were nice too, and it trailed off.

The silhouette moved into the light, and warmth enveloped it. The silhouette was a piece of the new Reality - a human? Their face was kind, in the warm light, and they continued to make the soothing noises to it. It liked the noises, and moved its head to look at the person and hear the noises better.

Their eyes met.

Warmth flooded it- _him_ \- and filled him. He was still a little hungry, but the gaping, consuming _maw_ that had been the core of his being for time out of mind - was full. For the first time in his existence, hunger did not define him. Instead, he was filled with a light that had very little to do with magic and everything to do with the heart of the person who held him.

He was loved.

And he was no longer hungry.


End file.
